200 million now use Facebook Lite monthly

Facebook reports that more than 200 million people now use Facebook Lite every month, prompting the social media giant to roll the service out to other countries around the world.

Facebook says in a statement: “While we continue to make all Facebook apps a great experience, we heard from people they want an even more lightweight option. In many areas, networks can be slow and not able to support everything found in other Facebook apps. To help make sure everyone can have a great Facebook experience regardless of where they connect, we rolled out Facebook Lite as a standalone, native app designed for lower end Android devices on spotty network connections to give people a reliable Facebook experience when bandwidth is low. We want to deliver the power of a native app, with features such as News Feed, status updates, push notifications, and camera/photo integration, while still being lightweight.”

Fabebook Lite is designed to work on 2G, and on older smartphones. It requires less data and less storage, and is reported to be quick to install and load.

Facebook has improved the app over the past year, including:

Improving performance to ensure it is fast and reliable, regardless of where users connect.

Improving look and feel: integrating more features that other Facebook apps have, while keeping it simple. For example, users can now like, comment, and share posts.

Easier onboarding: people who use FB Lite are also those who share devices, so Facebook has made it easier for people to log on and off their accounts.

The statement notes: “When we rolled out Facebook Lite for a handful of countries in 2015, people started using it, and we're excited about the growth we've had. We understand that a lot of the features of Facebook Lite are a good fit for emerging markets, but we've seen interest in other countries as well — specifically when people want a lightweight, simple experience.

Since people are using FB Lite and we hear from our community that they want more options, we are rolling out in additional countries: South Korea, UAE, Italy, and Israel. We are hoping to roll it out to further countries soon.”